Where we were anchored, San Antonio was in view, about five miles up stream. Where at the end of that reach of river a line of tremulous light, which we thought was the cataracts, bridged the converging palisades of the jungle, in the trees of the right bank it was sometimes easy to believe there was a glint of white buildings. But looking again, to reassure your sight, the apparition of dwellings vanished. At night, in the quiet, sometimes the ears could detect the shudder of the weighty rapids by San Antonio; but it was merely a tremor felt; there was no sound. The village remained to us for some time just that uncertain gleam by day, and the rapids but a minute reduction of a turmoil that was far. For in that languorous heat we counted miles differently, and it was pleasanter to suspect than to go and prove, and much easier.
One day I went. When in a small boat the jungle towered. The river, too, had a different character. From the shore, or from the big "Capella," the river was an expanse of light, an impression of shining peace. Whenever you got close to its surface it became alive and menacingly intimate. Our little boat seemed to roll in the powerful folds of a monster which wallowed ponderously and without ceasing. The trees afloat, charging down swiftly and in what one felt was an ominous quiet, stood well above our tiny craft.
We steered close in-shore to avoid the drifting wood and the set of the current. The jungle's sheer height, confusion, and intensity were more awesome than when seen from the steamer. Not many of the trees were of great beam, but their consistent height, with the lianas in a wreck from the far overhanging cornice, dwarfed our boat to an unimportant straw. At times the forest had a selvage of cane, and growths of arrow grass, bearing long white plumes twelve feet above us, and a pair of fan-shaped leaves resembling palm leaves.
The sound of the cataracts increased, and a barrier grew in height athwart the Madeira. Mounting high right ahead of us at last was a mass of granite boulders, with broad smooth surfaces, having the structure of gigantic masonry in ruin which weathered plutonic rock so often assumes. Beyond the barrier the river was plainly above our level. It was seen, resplendent as quicksilver, through the crenellations of the black rocks. One central mass of rock, higher than the rest, had a crown of dark and individual palms, standing paramount in the upper light. Yet, with that gleam of wide river behind, no great rush of water broke there. A few fountains spurted, apparently without source, and collapsed, and pulsed again. The white runnels of foam which laced the contours of the piled boulders gave the barrier the appearance of being miraculously uplifted, as though one saw thin daylight through its interstices. Not till the village was in view did we see where the main river avoided the barrier. The course here was looped. Above the barrier the river turned from the right bank, and heaped itself in a smooth steep glide through a narrow pass against the opposite shore, the roaring welter then running obliquely across the foot of the rocks to the front of San Antonio on the right bank again. The forest beside the falls seemed to be tremulous with continuous and profound underground thunder.